Myanmar villages burn as Rakhine unrest rages

Wednesday smoke billowed from at least three burning villages in the section of Rakhine country where Myanmar’s military is carrying out sourcing for militants, an AFP reporter saw.

The violence, which spanned six days after Rohingya militants staged surprise raids on police posts, has shown little sign of abating, leaving at least 110 confirmed dead and sending tens of thousands.

The homeless include ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, tens of thousands of whom have massed at the “zero line” border with Bangladesh which they are prohibited from crossing.

2 Rohingya women and two children’s figures washed up on Wednesday on Bangladeshi land, an official there told AFP, as villagers tried to swim across a frontier river or took to boats.

On Wednesday villagers in Rakhine continued to flee their own homes.

A Rohingya villager close to the town of Maungdaw, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated citizens fled his hamlet as security forces approached and torched their homes.

“Villagers are running off… where can we need to live today?” He told AFP.

It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm his account but Rohingya who’ve made it have brought similar testimony with them.

Fires were visible early Wednesday in the May Yu river which cuts through the area worst hit by unrest, according to an AFP reporter traveling by ship on a Myanmar visit to Maungdaw.

Outlying villages have observed some of the violence, increasing fears security operations are protected from scrutiny from the threat and inaccessibility of the area.

Rohingya villagers are stuck between authorities and troops hunting down the insurgents and militants offering sporadic resistance.

But testimony gathered in the homeless from AFP reaching Bangladesh suggests some Rohinyga guys are heeding a call-to-arms from the militants and therefore are remaining behind to struggle in their villages.

Even the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army asserts its guys started Friday’s surprise attacks with home made explosives, knives and a few firearms, murdering 11 country officials, on police posts.

After years in which violence was prevented by the Rohingya, the group last October performed deadly attacks on police posts.

That prompted a safety crackdown from the military which compelled 87,000 individuals to flee to Bangladesh and left scores dead of Myanmar.

The UN considers that military crackdown might have resorted to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.

On Sunday Pope Francis headed mounting international calls for its defense of “our Rohingya brothers”.

Rohingya refugees at a camp in Bangladesh

The UN also has urged Myanmar to shield civilians and called to allow the displaced into their territory — something Dhaka is reluctant to perform given it hosts 400,000 homeless Rohingya.

A Myanmar government official on Tuesday said security forces would use “maximum restraint” in coming days but insisted the country’s right to defend itself by “terrorists”.

The Rohingya of Myanmar will be the world’s largest stateless minority and suffer serious restrictions on their motions.

The post <p>Myanmar villages burn as Rakhine unrest rages</p> appeared first on rose mary village.

source http://www.rosemaryvillage.net/myanmar-villages-burn-as-rakhine-unrest-rages/